Name: Apple-Pie
Ingredients: 4 apples, peeled, quartered, and cored; ¾ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon lemon peel; 2-3 whole cloves; 1 stick cinnamon; 2 tablespoons water; 1 tablespoon lemon juice or ⅓ cup wine (optional); Pie crust

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple-Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a dish, combine the apples, sugar, lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon, and water.
If the apples are not very juicy, add lemon juice or wine.

Bake

Cover the mixture with pie crust.
Bake until the crust is golden and the apples are tender.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the main filling, softening as they bake to become tender.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps draw juice out of the apples.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor, used if the apples are dry.
Pie crust: Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the golden top.